The Rise and Fall of the Greek Elite

The Greeks are a shadow of what they once were and it is only the past that makes them relevant in the Roman contemporary present. The Romans want some of that cultural cache that the Greeks have to offer but at the same time they kind of look down their noses at modern Greece. Unlike other areas of the Roman Empire Greek elites don't really engage that much in the Roman imperial project so we do not have a large number of Greeks taking up Roman citizenship before everybody has citizenship in 212. Plutarch always written pairs of Greek and Roman lies so he's always got a Greek paired with a Roman as part of his character study projects.